The Blue Ridge Resistance (3 page)

Chapter 4: The Burden of Blessings

Back on the Thomas farm, Luke was on the roof of the house repairing some damaged shingles that had been causing a leak. He was not experienced at such a repair but did just as his brother said; look at how the old shingles are installed, and do that
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He was installing the replacement shingles and was quite proud of his self-taught accomplishment so far. He hoped to have the job completed before Nate returned home from the community meeting at the Murphy place. There were two reasons for this: to show his brother that he was capable of such a feat and to avoid the harassment that would surely come from needing Nate’s help.

As he tacked down the last of the shingles, he saw a small group of people walking up the driveway towards the house. There appeared to be two women in their late twenties or early thirties with three children, ranging in ages from around five to ten. He immediately went over to the ladder and climbed down to meet them in the driveway before they could reach the house. He had his sidearm holstered on his right, as he always did, but pulled his shirt to the side to make sure it was in plain view and readily accessible. 

Once he reached the ground, he ran over to the front door and yelled inside, “Eyes open—visitors!” He then walked out to the women and said in a polite but serious voice, “Can I help you?”

One of the women spoke up and said, “We’ve been on the road for a week now and are out of food for our children. Do you have anything you can spare?”

Nate looked around uneasily and replied, “Are you traveling with anyone else?”

“No, it’s just us,” the woman said. 

“Are you armed?”

The woman replied, “I have a pistol in my backpack. I need it to protect my children, so please don’t take it.”

“I’m not going to take anything from you. I just need to figure out if you are a threat, and you did just come walking up our drive, not the other way around. You know as well as I do, you can’t be too careful these days,” Luke replied. “Where are you traveling to? And where did you come from?”

“We’re coming from the Richmond, Virginia, area and are on our way to Indiana. We’re trying to find some family we have up there, or used to at least,” the woman said.

One of the smaller children grabbed her mother’s hand and said, “Mommy, my tummy hurts. When are we going to eat?”

The young mother just shushed the child, whispering to her to be quiet.

The look in the child’s eyes was heartbreaking for Luke. He had seen and had been hardened by a lot of pain and misery, but it never gets any easier when it is children who are the ones suffering. 

“Stay right here,” Luke said in a serious tone. “Don’t move. I’ll get something for your children to eat.” 

As he turned to walk into the house, he heard Judith screaming from one of the back windows, “Get out of there! Get out! Luke! They are in the cellar!”

Realizing the women and children had been sent as a diversion, Luke quickly turned and saw that the woman who had been doing the talking was pulling a small revolver from her backpack. He immediately began to draw his pistol and screamed, “No! Drop it! Drop it!”

As she continued to raise the gun towards him, he fired a round at her as her gun simultaneously discharged. He felt as if a bee had stung him in the thigh while everything seemed to go silent and into slow motion. The woman fell backwards with the jolt of the impact of the one hundred and eighty-grain .40-caliber bullet from his Glock 22. He stumbled back onto the porch, falling into the seated position while covering the other woman and children with his pistol. They turned and began to run, leaving the downed woman behind. He couldn’t shoot a woman and children in the back, so he lowered his gun and struggled back to his feet to check on the woman on the ground. 

He stood over her with one hand on his wound while using the other to cover her with his pistol, just in case. He saw that the round had entered the center of her chest. There was no chance she could still be alive. He then began to limp around to the back of the house to check on the situation Judith warned him about, to find her standing on the back porch, shotgun in hand, pointing frantically at the cellar. 

“They broke into the cellar. They were stealing our food,” she shouted.

Just then, Rachel came running out of the house in a panic. “You’ve been shot!” she yelled as she ran over to Luke. He looked down at his leg and began to feel a throbbing, burning pain. He started to feel dizzy and reached over to grab the porch railing as Judith and Rachel, one under each arm, helped him up the steps and into the house. They sat him down on the sofa as Rachel frantically ripped his pants open to get a better look at the wound.

“There isn’t much damage,” she said, relieved. “The wound cavity is pretty small and it doesn’t look like it went too deep. What kind of gun did she have?” Rachel asked Luke.

“Some little stubby revolver,” he said. 

Mildred came running up the stairs from the basement. “Haley is downstairs in the basement,” she said. She was carrying Ollie’s old, double-barreled twelve-gauge and had a fire in her eyes that the others had yet to see. “I’m sick of this! Sick of it! I’m sick and tired of having people come, take what is ours, and try to hurt us to get it. Enough!” she screamed as she walked over to the open door leading out to the back porch. “You sons of bitches had better keep running,” she screamed as she fired both barrels sequentially into the woods, in the general direction the men had run to escape. She quickly reloaded and said, “Judith, you watch the front of the house, I’ll watch the back. Don’t take your eyes off the road and the tree line until Nate is back with Evan and Jason. We don’t know if those bastards are coming back for their woman, or not, once they realize she is down. Rachel, you take him downstairs to your office and get him all fixed up. We can handle this,” Mildred said as she nodded to Judith.

Following Mildred’s direction, Rachel led Luke downstairs to her makeshift medical office. She cleaned the wound and removed the bullet from his leg. She wasn’t sure what caliber it was, not being a gun aficionado herself, but she was thankful it was small and did not seem to carry much energy. After treating him as best she could with what she had, she closed and bandaged the wound and started him on an antibiotic to avoid infection. She was glad that in the farming environment, most farms had their own livestock antibiotics that could also be used on humans. This is something many preppers had caught on to before the collapse, but being that Ollie and Mildred raised cattle, they naturally had a supply on hand.

After she got Luke’s wounds treated and wrapped, he said, “I’ll stay down here with Haley. Why don’t you go and see if Mildred or Judith needs anything.”

She kissed him on the lips. “Okay, dear. Yell if you need anything,” she said as she turned and walked up the stairs.

A few hours later, Nate, Evan, and Jason came into Judith’s view as they rode up the driveway to the home. Nate was at a slow trot, trying to stay back with Evan and Jason, who were much slower on their bikes. Judith waved frantically to get their attention, as she was relieved they were finally home. As Nate saw her wave with one hand, he realized she had a shotgun in the other. He immediately nudged the horse in the ribs and raced to the house. Evan and Jason both jumped off their bikes and pulled their VZ58s around from their backs and into the ready position; they both scanned the surrounding areas of the house, not knowing what the threat was, or if it was still around. They then covered each other as they bounded towards the house.

As Nate rode up to the house, he saw the body of the woman lying on the ground with blood all over her chest. He quickly dismounted, checked her vitals, and picked up the small handgun that was on the ground, just out of her reach. He checked to see if it was loaded and found that it still held live rounds in four of its five cylinders. He stuck it in his waistband and ran on up to Judith to get debriefed on what had occurred in his absence.

“What happened?” he asked. “Is anyone else hurt?”

“They tried to rob us,” Judith said, still under stress from the situation. “Luke shot her, but she hit him too…”

“What? Oh my God! Is he okay?” Nate interrupted in a panic.

“Yes, it wasn’t bad. He’s fine,” Judith tried to explain as Rachel came out onto the front porch and gave Nate a hug.

Rachel said to Nate, “Oh, thank God you’re home. Luke will be fine. I’ve got him all cleaned up, and he is downstairs watching over Haley. We’ve been watching the house from up here and have just been waiting for you to get home.”

Evan and Jason joined them on the porch, keeping their eyes open and scanning the perimeter. “What happened?” Evan asked.

Rachel gathered her thoughts and said, “Two women and three children approached the house. Luke came down from the roof to confront them. They gave him some sob story about traveling alone with hungry children. Just as he decided to give them some food, Judith caught some men in the cellar around back and started yelling for Nate. The woman lying on the ground over there pulled her pistol and fired at Luke to keep him away from her men once they were discovered. He returned fire and she went down with one shot.”

“What about the men and the other woman and the children?” Jason asked.

“The other woman and the children turned and ran towards the main road. Luke just let them go. The men around back in the cellar ran into the woods and got away,” she replied.

“Cowards!” said Jason in disgust. “What kind of man puts women and children on the front lines when they are just going to run and hide to protect their own worthless asses if something goes down? I’m gonna go check out back,” Jason said as he walked away, enraged by the situation.

Nate started to follow him and said, “Wait up, I’ll cover you.”

As Jason and Nate went around the house to check out the cellar and the surrounding woods, Evan went into the house to check on the women and Luke. He was glad to see that Luke appeared to be doing fine, and that the women had handled themselves admirably. 

He then joined the other two out back. “Did you find anything?”

Jason replied, “Negative. It looks like got away with some canned goods, well, jarred goods we call canning. They dropped and broke some of them during their cowardly retreat. We trailed them through the woods for a while, and from what we could see from their tracks, they doubled back to the main road, probably joining back up with their decoys. From there, it’s anyone’s guess where they went.”

Evan looked around, gathering his thoughts and said, “Well, on the bright side, they seem to have been low-level thieves. Probably migrants desperate for food, but not an organized or skilled operation.”

“So what now?” asked Nate.

“Well, we need to do something with the body, and we need to let the other homesteads know what happened here. They need to keep an eye out and never go outside without being armed. They also need to know the ruse that was used.”

Jason added in disgust, “I guess Daryl was right; the winter lull is over.”

“So what do we do with the body?” asked Nate.

“Hmmm,” said Evan as he thought it over. “Well, we need to give her a burial… but not here. I think we need to find a place where bodies in this situation can be buried in a proper way, but not in a place where the victims are haunted, knowing their assailant is interned nearby.” He paused for a moment and asked, “Nate, how many horses does Mildred have over here now?

“Three total. The one I rode today and the two in the stable.”

Evan scratched his chin. “Well, Jason and I will deal with the body, but we will need to borrow your horses. All three. We’ll use one for a packhorse for her, and we will ride the other two. That way we can make good time getting over to Daryl’s place so we can talk things over with him. He seems to be the unofficial mayor around here these days.”

Jason replied, “I guess that comes natural, as being a bachelor he has the time to get around to the other homesteads more than most.”

“Good point,” Evan replied. “That and the man who makes the bombs has some clout by default,” he said with a chuckle.

“And the fur hat helps,” added Jason. “It gives him that distinguished look.”

The three men shared a stress-relieving laugh and began to get everything together to deal with the body. Once they had her wrapped up in some old bed sheets, they tied her securely to the packsaddle on the horse. 

As Evan and Jason mounted up, Evan said, “We’ll bring the horses back tomorrow and get our bikes. By the time we get this situation dealt with, it will be getting late and we’ll need to get back to the Homefront. You keep an eye on them tonight,” he said with a tip of his hat to Nate.

“Yes, sir,” Nate replied. 

Evan and Jason awkwardly got underway on the horses and began the trip over to Daryl’s cabin. They both had learned the basics of horsemanship but were far from being experienced and proficient. 

As Nate chuckled under his breath watching them ride away, he turned and began to walk back into the house, saying under his breath, “I’d rather fight off looters and thieves than the cartels any day.”

Chapter 5: Facing Reality

As Evan and Jason rode towards Daryl’s cabin with the packhorse in tow, they proceeded with great caution, not knowing where the dead woman’s companions were, or if they still had nefarious intentions. They both scanned the road up ahead, while simultaneously looking into the woods that lined both sides of the road. Jason finally broke the silence by asking the question, “What do you think the odds are that they are lying low to make another move?”

Evan replied, “Slim to none.”

“How do you come to that conclusion so fast?” Jason asked.

“They have small children with them and the men ran off at the first sign of trouble,” replied Evan. “If they were really bad news, like those that ran with Frank Muncie, Jr., they would have engaged when shots rang out. Also, the fact that they are caring for children, even if resorting to crime to make it happen, says they have other priorities than revenge or conquest. The true scumbags would have seen those little ones as liabilities a long time ago.”

“That makes sense, I guess,” replied Jason.

Evan continued, “My guess is that they were normal people—normal as in dependent on society, that is—who simply can’t make it on their own now. Once you’ve got a hungry child, you’ll do whatever it takes to feed them. Now, you aren’t the kind of man who would be dependent on others, but imagine if your lot in life was to live in an apartment you didn’t own, without the resources to produce or procure your own food. You survived paycheck to paycheck, but somehow just barely always got by, getting anything you needed from within the system. Now imagine it all went away overnight. You and I had a game plan. You and I had skills and resources, and look how much we have still struggled, and how hard we have had to work in order to live as we do. That’s just not something everyone is blessed with. If you were in the aforementioned situation and your paycheck stopped coming, your grocer stopped stocking the shelves, and the society you were so dependent on simply stopped functioning, how long would it take for you to realize your children will starve if you don’t take drastic measures?”

“About a week,” Jason replied. 

“Right,” Evan responded. “Could you let your wife and boys ache from hunger because feeding them would mean you have to step away from your own values? I doubt you could and neither could I. I just can’t see a desperate family who has been changed by this world, as we all have, as evil just because they steal to eat. But then again, maybe I’m just getting old and soft.”

As Jason thought about what Evan said, they rounded the corner and saw a figure dart off into the woods. They immediately brought their horses to a stop and looked and listened. They could hear the sound of rustling in the bushes as well as the muffled sound of a crying child. Evan got down from his horse and handed the reigns to Jason. He whispered, “I hope I’m not about to eat my words.” He turned and began to slowly walk up the road.

As he approached the area where he assumed them to be, the sounds of the crying child became more muffled. “Take your hand off of that poor child’s mouth!” he yelled. “You aren’t hiding from anyone, and nobody is gonna hurt you unless you pull some stupid move.” He could hear the child sniffling and could tell their mouth was no longer being covered. “Let me give you some advice,” he continued to shout loud enough for them to hear him. “The people around here act as one. You hit one of us, and you will be hit by all of us. We’ve seen and done some things that you don’t want us to repeat, trust me on that. The residents here are good people, though. If you are just passing through, do so in broad daylight, out in the open, and you will not be bothered. If you are desperate, especially to feed your children, speak up. Don’t try to steal. If you do, you’ll get caught, and I promise you, none of our family members’ safety is worth risking while we try to determine your intentions. Now, whoever is with that child, I’m going to leave some bread and some jerky folded up in a towel on the side of the road. It’s for the children, so give it to them and them only.” 

Evan then reached into his pack and pulled out some food that Molly had packed for him to take along. He placed it on the ground, just as he had said. As Evan turned to walk away, he stopped and said, “And if that was you that tried to rob my friends and got your woman killed, you had better look at yourselves as her killer. What kind of a man puts women and children in harm’s way and then runs like a coward? You should truly be ashamed.”

As Evan began to walk away, he heard a woman’s voice say while fighting back her own tears, “I’m sorry,” followed by sniffling.

Evan paused and said, “Say a prayer, and ask God for forgiveness. Ask God to show you the way. You’re not going to make it without him on the road you’ve chosen.”

He then turned and walked back towards Jason, who was in a state of shock of what Evan had just done. When Evan reached him, Jason said, “What in the world is the matter with you? You made yourself an easy target and could have gotten yourself killed!”

As Evan climbed back onto the horse, a woman crept out of the woods where he had laid the food. She picked it up and started to run back in the woods. Before she slipped away out of sight, she stopped and turned to face him and Jason. She looked weathered and beaten down. They could see the stories of tragedy and loss written into the lines of her face. She silently mouthed the words thank you, and walked back into the woods.

Evan looked at Jason and said, “Some people need to be killed, and some people don’t. They don’t. Every now and then, we need to realize that we may have the opportunity to be the glimmer of hope for humanity for others who may have already given up. It doesn’t do us much good in the long run to do nothing but protect our children from the world, while doing nothing to leave them a better world to live in.”

Jason smiled and understood completely what he meant. They both nudged their horses forward and continued down the road. As they approached the spot where they left the food, they heard a man’s voice say, “Wait… please wait.”

They brought their horses to a stop and looked over as a thin, disheveled man, stepped out onto the road. “Is that her?” he asked, pointing to the body on the packhorse.

“Yes, it is,” Evan replied.

“What are you going to do with her?” the man asked, unable to hold back his own tears.

“We are going to give her a proper burial,” Evan said.

The man took a step towards the packhorse, stopped, and said, “Can I say goodbye? She was my wife. I’ve completely failed her in life. She didn’t deserve this. It should have been me,” he said with tears running down his face. “Please just let me say goodbye.”

Evan motioned his horse forward, pulling the packhorse along, and brought it to the edge of the road. He tied the reigns of the packhorse to a tree branch and said, “Take all the time you need.” He then nudged his horse forward and motioned for Jason to follow. They rode to the next bend in the road and dismounted, tying their horses to a tree and sitting down on the hillside in the shade.

They watched as the man cried uncontrollably, holding onto her body, begging her for forgiveness. Two small children then came out of the woods crying. He picked them both up as they shared the agonizingly painful moment together.

“Do you think they are her children?” Jason asked.

Evan poked a stick at the ground and said, “It sure seems that way.”

The grieving lasted a few more moments, and then another man and the woman who had gotten the food, came down to the road with the third child to pay their last respects. 

The other man then nudged at his friend to come on. He sat his children back down on the ground, held both of them by the hand, and the group started walking down the middle of the road in plain view. As they approached Evan and Jason, they paused for just a moment, and the husband of the dead woman looked over to Evan and said, “You were right. You were right about everything.” With that, the group continued down the road in broad daylight, no longer in hiding.

“Hopefully they stay out of the shadows from now on,” Evan said.

“I have a feeling they will,” replied Jason as he patted Evan on the shoulder and stood up. “Now let’s get going.”

With that, they mounted their horses, gathered the packhorse, and resumed their journey to Daryl’s home.

~~~~

The rest of the ride was uneventful and quiet, with both men keeping a vigilant eye out for trouble while pondering the day’s events. As they approached Daryl’s place, they noticed a new and not so welcoming sign at the entrance to his property. It read, “Unannounced trespassers will be shot. Ring the bell to make yourself known.”

Jason read the sign, chuckled and said, “Looks like we had better ring the bell.”

“I reckon so,” replied Evan with a chuckle.

Jason pulled his horse alongside the sign, where Daryl had attached an old cowbell to a chain. He rang the bell, looked at Evan, and said, “Now what?”

Evan looked at the sign again. “I guess we wait.”

It was only a moment later when Daryl yelled from the bushes, “I guess the sign works.”

Evan shouted back to him, “Yep, as long as your visitors aren’t up to no good and as long as they can read English, I reckon it will.” 

Daryl came bounding down out of the woods and said, “Well that’s the idea. If I hear the bell ring, I have a chance to check out who it is before they see me. If I see someone poking around and never heard the bell, I assume they are up to no good. As a one-man show out here, I have to devise my own force multipliers.”

The men shared a laugh as Daryl noticed their cargo on the packhorse and the mood quickly got back to business. “Who is that?” he asked.

“A decoy for some thieves,” Jason replied. 

“What?” Daryl said, confused about what Jason had just said.

Evan and Jason then began to tell Daryl the story as it had been told to them, as well as their encounter with her family on the road. Once Daryl had all of the information, Evan asked, “So what do you think we should do with her?”

Daryl scratched his beard for a moment, and said, “Well, I think you gentleman handled everything pretty well, and you are right about needing to give her a proper burial. There is a secluded patch of woods in between Blue Tick Road and Tackett’s Creek Road. There isn’t much that I could think of that we would need that land for in the future. I think that would be a suitable spot for these types of folks. Burn the hell out of the bodies of the true scumbag-types though. Rapists and murders don’t deserve to have a shovel lifted in their honor.”

“Amen to that!” said Jason.

Daryl accompanied Evan and Jason to the burial site, bringing along several shovels. They fashioned a marker for her grave from a tree branch, and whittled into it, “May she rest in peace,” along with the date. They didn’t know her name, unfortunately. They didn’t think to ask her family when they crossed paths with them earlier.

Daryl placed his hat over his heart as they piled rocks on top of the freshly covered grave, and said, “It’s a shame we didn’t know more about her, or even her name.”

“Yes, sir, it is,” replied Evan with a heavy heart. “What’s worse, though, is that her situation in life prior to the collapse didn’t have her prepared to deal with the new world we all live in now, without having to turn to petty crime. It’s a shame that the values that make self-sufficiency possible for people like us were lost in a single generation full of dependency. Whether it was dependency on government, society, or technology; in one generation, people left behind the ethic and skills it takes to survive in this cruel world. I’m sure before that society was taken away from her, she was probably a wonderful, typical American woman any of us would have been proud to call a friend.”

“Amen to that,” added Jason.

After a moment of silence, Jason said, “We should probably be getting back home. It’s getting late and our wives are probably getting worried.”

“Yes, I’ve got to get back home myself,” said Daryl as he put his hat back on and turned to his horse. “I had some homemade soap cooking on the fire that I just remembered. Jason, after you guys discuss the Muncie and Murphy properties, let us know what you decide.”

Jason shook Daryl’s hand, and said, “Yes, sir, I will, and thanks.

With that, the men mounted up and went their respective ways. Daryl rode back to his place while Evan and Jason rode back towards the Homefront. After a few miles, Jason broke the silence of the somber evening by saying, “So what do you think? Should Griff and I move our families?”

Evan replied, “The selfish side of me wants you to stay onboard with us. We’ve gotten quite used to having the extra hands running the place and the helping out with security. That and you’ve become a part of our family. However, you deserve to have your own place. Your family left behind everything you had to join up with us. If everything settles down someday, you will need a place to pass on to your boys, and they will need a place to raise their families. That being said, barring some unforeseen event, I think you should do it. You and Griff can both take a portion of the animals at the Homefront to help get you started as well. The only reason we have as much as we do now, is because you helped us raise and acquire it all.”

Jason rode silently for a moment, taking it all in and said, “Thanks man, I really appreciate that. I can’t imagine what this entire ordeal would have been like if we weren’t in it together. Just imagining the escape from New York without another armed and like-minded friend is hard to comprehend. We made it out of there the way we did because we were together. My wife could have ended up just like the woman we just buried—desperate to feed our kids if I hadn’t made it home to her.”